This blog offers an Australian perspective on faith, religion and spirituality. It invites you to join the joys and hope, the grief and anguish of a middle aged Aussie Catholic.
The material reflects my interest in global as well as local issues.My perspective is probably more quirky than orthodox.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

No Laughing We're Catholic

Jokes at the end of Mass are not appropriate, Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Julian Porteous says. (and if you read the comments on this article it seems that the "Temple Police" are ready to pursue this cause with laugh-outs)

Bishop Porteous told the Sydney Morning Herald that Mass was not the venue for the priest to indulge his own personality.

"A religious ceremony, for Catholics a Mass, is a sacred event, and therefore the whole context of celebration should be one that engenders respect, appreciation of the divine and a whole sense of reverence for holy things, that is always got to be the ground in which a priest approaches his duties.

"There has been a tendency for people to feel a joke at the end of the Mass is something to leave people with a smile, but I personally don't think it is appropriate."

And it's not just the Catholics. Anglicans in Sydney also have their "Grumpy Old Bishops' ready and willing to de-smile the liturgy.

I liked going to church because I loved pleasing my father, but honestly, it could be pretty boring for a young girl. Sitting in the pew, I'd pretend to pay attention to his sermons while I found ways to entertain myself. I'd draw pictures on offering envelopes; make all kinds of lists and play word games with hymns. I'd flip through all 300-plus pages of Praise and Worship or Worship in Song, putting the phrase "under the covers" after all the titles. It worked like this:

Just As I Am under the covers.Joy Unspeakable under the covers.How Great Thou Art under the covers.Love Lifted Me under the covers.

How would a local Catholic version go?

If I were a Butterfly under the doona

Glory and Praise in my Holden Ute

All Are Welcome at the pub with no beer

Firmly I believe I feel like a TooheysHail Queen of heaven aveagoodweekend